Lights Changing Colour
by massivenerdywarehouse
Summary: Gail and Holly fic. A little different than my other ones, but again takes place after 4x13 and they've been together for a long while. Feedback appreciated :) Part 1/?
1. Chapter 1

A low bang noise shook Holly out of her deep sleep. She rubbed her eyes and through the fog of fatigue, attempted to figure out where the bang came from.

Now she heard it, the, "Owww. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Stupid. Shit. Owww. Fuck," being whispered in the dark.

"Gail?"

"Oh my god, I'm sorry. I was trying not to wake you, but," she inhaled deeply, "ahh… it hurts… I stubbed my toe on the fucking dresser again. But I'm good. Go back to sleep," Gail limped over to her side of the bed and crawled under the covers. She curled up facing away from Holly.

"Do you think it's broken? I could look it over for you if you want," Holly offered even though she knew the response.

"I'm fine. Yeah, I would love to push the dresser off the rooftop, just to see it explode into a million tiny pieces… But my toe only stung a little. I'm all good now. I'll try harder to avoid the stupid thing next time."

"I don't care that you woke me up. I like to know when you get home," Holly's voice was riddled with concern, "but why'd you get home so late. I thought that your shift ended at one, it's nearly four now."

"It was just a regular shift. Nothing special," Gail shrugged as she felt Holly's eyes on the back of her head, "No biggie. I just had some paper work that I wanted to get a head start on for this training thing coming up."

"Don't lie to me. A head start? On paper work? You always procrastinate on your paper work. What's going on?"

The small blonde stared out the window into the night sky and curled tighter. Her own body betrayed her when she let out a shaky breath.

"Gail. Gail, look at me," Holly's voice grew softer as she placed a hand on Gail's arm, "Are you crying?"

"No," Gail rolled over to face her girlfriend.

The glow of a streetlight spilled in through the open window and illuminated Gail's face. Holly could see now that Gail had yet to shed any tears but her blue eyes were glassy and distant. She was fighting against losing her composure, losing her control, losing it.

"Please tell me what's going on," Holly pleaded.

"It's nothing. It's dumb. It's okay. I just had a long day. There's nothing to really talk about."

"I don't believe you. I can see that there's something wrong. I know you. I'm here for you always. You know that right? You don't need to be tough for me."

"I know," said Gail with dryer eyes now, "but I'm tired. I need to sleep."

By now Holly knew how to walk the line; the delicate balance between pushing Gail to open up and giving her space to work through it. A few times, Holly had pushed too hard, causing in huge arguments that end with Gail giving the cold shoulder for a few days. Other times, Holly hadn't pushed at all. Both resulted in Holly never knowing what had bothered her girlfriend that day or that week.

"Tomorrow morning?"

Gail sighed and gave a half smile, "Yeah, we can talk tomorrow morning. Can I please just go to sleep now?"

"Pinkie swear," Holly held out her hand and stuck out her pinkie, "Don't look at me like that. You know I'm serious."

"Pinkie swear? You're the smartest person I know, but sometimes, I swear that you're really ten years-old in there," but she obliged and linked her pinkie with Holly's.

"No way. Come on. I like cheesy horror movies and you know that I like to paint my toenails a different colour every week. My mind has at least matured to twelve," Holly raised an eyebrow.

"Fine. Alright," Gail smirked, "Twelve it is."

"Damn straight," Holly said as she moved to close the gap between them.

Gail just rolled her eyes.

"I love you," Holly whispered.

"Same, but you know, minus all the mushy words stuff."

"I know," Holly smirked and gently kissed Gail's nose.

Gail made a squishy scrunched face and wriggled her nose like she always does. It's an expression on Gail that Holly adores more than anything.

"Good," Gail smiled as she positioned herself half on top of Holly and nuzzled her face into her girlfriend's neck. She took a moment to breathe in that sweet aroma that could only be described as 'Holly'; light perfume, hand sanitizer, coconut shampoo, and something else.

"Goodnight," Holly kissed Gail's head and brought the covers up around their shoulders. Feeling better that Gail had agreed to talk later and cozy now, with her arms wrapped tightly around her girlfriend, Holly closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Gail lay there wide eyed in Holly's arms most of the night. Feeling safe and loved, but never able to stop thinking. Never able to shake the images, the voices, the damp, the smells, the faces, from her thoughts. Eventually the exhaustion became too much and her vivid thoughts turned to vivid dreams, taking her places that she didn't want to go.


	2. Chapter 2

_This is part 2 of the fic. Reviews are always appreciated. I'm not sure yet how many chapters there will be but they should be posted a little faster now. I hope you're all ready for the dark path this fic is headed down._

Holly turned away from the kitchen counter and walked over towards the couch. Gail sat there in the exact same position that Holly had left her, still starring at the light's reflection in her black coffee for at least twenty minutes now.

The afternoon was nearly over and Gail had hardly said a word all day, just a few mumbles and saying "sorry" here and there. Until now though, she had kept herself busy with cleaning every little thing in the whole apartment. Every time Holly went to ask her about last night Gail would just reply with, "Later," and if Holly pushed the subject, she was met with firm, "No," and Gail walking away.

Holly sat down beside her, "I made you some toast. You should eat something… Gail? You haven't eaten all day, I made you toast."

"What?... Sorry," Gail said to the floor, "Ummm… I'm not really hungry but thanks. Maybe I'll eat it later."

Holly set the plate on the glass table. She reached out for Gail's hands. On contact, Gail's hands flinched a little and she tried to pull away but Holly had a good hold. She led Gail to put the cold coffee down on the table. Then entwined Gail's fingers with her own, brought them closer to her, and held them.

"If you're not going to eat then you should tell me what happened yesterday. I need to know why you're in such a weird mood. If we're going to make living together work then you need to be open with me."

"I'm fine. There's not much to tell."

"You're not fine," Holly's eyes pleaded for Gail to look up, "It's the afternoon and you haven't eaten, you're wearing sweatpants, you haven't even put on your red lipstick which is usually the first thing you do in the morning, you're hardly talking to me, you were all weird last night, and you look like you haven't slept at all."

Gail looked up to meet deep brown eyes, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about it."

"Tell me. You said that you would. If it's not a big deal like you say then it shouldn't be hard to tell me what happened. I just want to understand whatever this is and why you suddenly don't have to work your regular shift tonight… Okay?"

"Fine, but later," Gail was agitated and went to stand up but Holly's grip kept her down. Gail knew she wasn't going to be able to walk away from this and she didn't have the energy to argue with Holly, not today.

"You promised me."

"I really don't feel like it," said Gail, "but, yeah, okay. I guess you'll eventually find out anyways, so I might as well say it all now."

Holly remained silent and waited for her girlfriend to begin.

Gail looked away to an open window. Her eyes that had seemed nearly bursting with emotion all morning, now went cold as she began to recall the previous day…

…..

"Remind me again why we had to come out to this guy's house in the middle of 'I've really got my shit together' town," Gail looked around her, "It's creeping me out."

"Well Peck, normal people would call it a suburb," said Oliver, "And we're here because it's a slow week and the guy who lives here is wanted for questioning in an assault."

Holly looked up at the large, older house, "What did perfect suburbs guy do?"

"The file said that yesterday Mr. Hank Nichol's car and license plate were ID'd by some young guy named Jason," they began to walk up the house's front steps, "Jason alleges that Hank here bumped into him outside a 7-Eleven. When Jason yelled at Hank for nearly knocking him over, Hank proceeded to shove Jason into the exterior wall of the store. He was shoved hard enough to break his elbow and then Hank decided to kick him a few times before driving off." Oliver showed pictures of both the men to Gail.

"And why didn't someone, not us, come out here yesterday to bring in Hank for questioning?"

"The kid only had part of the licence plate and there's a lot of black Honda Civics in Toronto… a lot. So it took a while to narrow it down."

"Alright. This Hank guy better be home cuz I want to spend as little time out here as possible."

Gail knocked. They waited. Gail knocked again. They waited. Oliver stepped up and knocked. They waited. Nothing. No answer.

"Maybe he's doing something around backyard."

Gail nodded in agreement so they walked around the side of the house. Nothing. No one was back there.

"What a shit looking backyard. It's like the guy's not even trying," said Gail while gesturing to the unkempt grass, the garden that had more weeds than plants, and a few empty beer bottles.

"Maybe he just doesn't care but it is kinda bad for the area," said Oliver, "Let's knock on the backdoor. If he doesn't answer, we can just leave and someone else will come back later. Yes?"

"Yup," said Gail as she walked over and knocked on the back door. No one came to answer it.

"I guess Hank's not home so let's hit the road."

"Wait," Gail's ear was pressed against the door, "I think that someone's home but they're just not answering."

"I don't hear anything."

"I have this, I don't know, this off feeling ," Gail was intent.

"You know what, I think you have been watching too many of those shows with cops that are like a medium or they deduce things or they just sense things."

"One, you're the only one watching those shows Oliver. And two, you'll see that I'm right. Someone is home," Gail paused, "Shhh… I think that I heard it again." She turned the doorknob, "The door is unlocked but a stuck, like it's jammed shut."

"Peck, we are leaving now. Let's go."

"Oliver I don't want to end up being the ones that have to come back later because this guy is hiding in there," said Gail.

"Let it go. We have other things to do."

When Oliver turned to leave he heard Gail say, "I heard it again." That was followed by the sound Gail's shoulder made when it connected with the door and the splintering noise that followed.

The wooden door had expanded in the humidity of the hot summer day and Gail had released the tension between it and the doorframe, "Oops", Gail looked on the floor at the little chunks of wood that had broken off under the force.

Oliver turned and just stood there, staring at the partially busted door that Gail was now slipping by, "Whoa. Whoa. What do you think you're doing? That's against the law Peck. You hearing tiny noises are not probable cause to break in the man's door. When Hank gets home to see this, you and I are going to be in a lot of shit."

"It's not really my fault. I didn't know that his shitty door was going to do that and it's not broken too bad so maybe he won't really notice. I don't think he even uses this it," Gail was already inside, "And just trust me. I'm gonna find out what's going on here. Once we do, nobody's going to care about probable cause."

"This is not how I saw my day going."

"Are you coming or not?"

"Well I can't just let you go in there by yourself, so yeah, I'm coming," Oliver muttered to himself as he walked inside, "but Peck, if no one is here then this is all you. Understood?"

Gail gave a salute of understanding.

Oliver sighed and followed Gail slowly through the house. They called out every now and again but no answer. They checked each room upstairs and downstairs. Bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, the kitchen and ended with Oliver and Gail standing in the living room. There appeared to be no one in the house.

"At least we discovered one thing," said Oliver dryly, "Hank is guilty of being a neat freak. There's not at thing in here that's out of place."

"I haven't made a mistake," Gail looked around the living room for something to redeem herself. All she found were a bunch of DVDs that weren't in their boxes stacked near the television.

Gail didn't think much of it until Oliver noticed them too, "What are those? They don't look like movies, but personal."

Gail picked up a few and flicked through them, "I don't know… They all have names on them; Emma, Jessica, Abby, Robyn, Zoey and Kaylee."

Oliver pursed his lips, "Hmmmm."

"Maybe he has a porn addiction or maybe, maybe he makes sex tapes with prostitutes."

"Why does it have to be prostitutes?"

"You showed me the picture of him that we have on file. We both know what he looks like."

Oliver was about to protest but stopped. After rolling through a series of faces while he mulled it over for a minute, he nodded in agreement. "You may be on to something there. But, big but, his 'extracurricular activities," Oliver made air quotes, "are not why we're here. And you know what? He's not here either so I think we should leave now."

Gail looked disappointed, but not completely deterred from her suspicions about Hank and the house.

"You and I," said a tense Oliver, "we'll go for a nice long drive and maybe think about how we're going to explain this Hank guy's broken back door to that man who holds our careers in the palms of his hands. Ummm, you may know him as Staff Sergeant Best. You know… Frank."

"Holy crap Oliver. Calm the fuck the down," she tapped the side of her head, "I've been figuring it out since we got in here. Totally got it covered. It'll all work out even if we don't find anything. Besides, I still think that there's something going on here."

"Okay well that's great, Peck," Oliver said sarcastically, "You just keep snooping around in Hank's house while I stand here crapping my pants thinking about how long our suspension will be. Or maybe it'll be worse than a suspension. And there's…"

"Shhhh."

"What?" Oliver whispered.

"Shut up and don't move."

Oliver obeyed. They both stood still, not even breathing, just listening for the smallest noise.

"Did you hear that?"

"Surprisingly, yes," said Oliver, "but I don't know where it came from."

"When we were walking around, did you see a basement door?"

"It might be in the little alcove behind the kitchen. I didn't go back there."

"I think we should check it out. If we don't find anything then I'll admit that I was wrong. Would that make you happy?"

"Yes, very," said Oliver.

They quietly walked to the back of the kitchen and rounded the corner into the little alcove. It was part pantry but also had a door that probably led to the basement.

"That's weird," said Oliver.

"No, that," Gail pointed to the door, "is more than weird. That's fucked."

"It looks like the door is wooden but reinforced with something. And I count two latch locks and three bolt locks."

"Why would someone put locks like that on a basement door?"

"I don't know, but now I'm thinking that I may have been wrong about your gut instincts. There's definitely something not right about this."

Gail unlocked and unlatched everything and waited for Oliver to nod that she could open the door. She swung it open and… nothing but darkness.

Oliver looked around, "It's dark down there and I don't see a light switch."

"That's why the precinct gave us these nifty little things called flashlights. You know, to see in the dark," Gail pulled hers out and shone it into the darkness.

"Ha, such a joker today," said Oliver teasingly before he got out his flashlight as well.

Gail led the way as they began their descent into the darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

_Reviews appreciated. And thank you for all the follows and feedback so far. Down into the dark we go…._

_Trigger warning: abuse (many kinds of abuse, please heed my warning if this is your trigger)_

Only a few steps down and the smell hit them like a fog. It was putrid, musty, and dirty. Gail couldn't pin down exactly what might make the strong odour but she didn't really want to know either.

The stairs were old and wooden. They creaked and shifted under each step. A few of them sagged in the middle under Gail's weight and she felt relieved each time one of them held and didn't break. If any steps gave way, there was no railing, no nothing, for her to grasp.

Besides their flashlights, the only other bit of illumination came from a basement window. It was small, rectangular, and high on the wall opposite the stairs. But, there were only a few slivers of evening light making it into the basement so Gail supposed that it was either boarded up or blocked off in some other way.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they could see that the basement wasn't empty, but their little flashlights were not bright enough to give them indication as to what those objects were. It wasn't until Gail practically walked into it that she saw it; a small chain hanging up above her. She looked up and saw the caged industrial light bulb that it was connected to. When she pulled the chain, the light flickered a few times and shone a rough glow that touched every object and found its way into every corner.

Gail and Oliver now saw everything. There was a lot to take in, there was a lot to see, but somehow, there was nothing to say. No way to verbalize their thoughts. They just stood beside each other; each surveyed the basement in silence.

Gail now gathered that at least part of the smell came from the damp state of the old basement. She spotted mould, mildew, and paint bubbled and peeling from the cinder blocks that made up the walls. The floor was a dark concrete with moisture cracks and rusty looking stains that started from between cinder blocks and lead to the floor's drains.

Up above her, she noticed exposed rafters. Pipes were leaking and sweating, with drops falling into big plastic pales. Exposed wires hung all along the ceiling and weaved around each rafter. Gail wasn't sure that all the wires even went anywhere at all.

She saw a small old television in one of the corners and a few old toys, mostly broken, scattered around the room. There are six single sized mattresses on the cold floor, not one of them looked good enough to sleep on. They were old, thin, Gail saw the springs in some places, and with stains that she hoped weren't the urine and blood that they looked like.

Gail picked up the torn teddy bear that lay at her feet and tried to push a little of the stuffing back into a rip. She looked to Oliver for the first time since she'd turned on the light. His eyes met her sympathetically. He saw how unnerved she was by all this and tried to keep a strong face for her.

Oliver placed a hand on her shoulder, "I'm going to call for backup."

Gail nodded and walked around a bit while Oliver was on the radio.

There was a door at the back of the room, probably to some kind of cold cellar thought Gail. She turned the rusty doorknob and opened it; she glanced down and six pairs of little eyes stared back up at her. A minute ago, Gail wouldn't have thought it was possible, but her heart sank even further when she remembered the stack of DVDs upstairs. She knew that each name must correspond with one of these girls.

They seemed so terrified, each hung on to the other for dear life. They could only be six or seven at the most. Even Gail appeared as an enemy to them. She wanted to frown at their ragged clothes and dirty faces, but she tried her best to smile.

She bent down to get more on their level and tried to talk as softly as possible, "Hi… ummm… my name is Gail and that guy down by the stairs is Oliver," she pointed to her badge, "we are police officers and we're here to help you. We're here to keep you safe."

The girls stared at Gail and then looked to each other. She held out her hand to them. They didn't say anything, but regarded her like they were considering moving towards her, one girl began to shift a little towards Gail…

But their newfound glimmer of hope was shattered in an instant with the loud noise of heavy boots that crashed down the stairs.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing in here?"

Oliver tried to say something and get his gun out but the bigger man had already tackled him to the ground. Oliver's gun was knocked under the steps. As the man stood up, he pulled his own pistol out of the back of his pants. He had grabbed it from a drawer upstairs as soon as he realised there were cops in his house.

"Stop! Drop the weapon," yelled Gail. She had gotten within five feet of the man and had her firearm aimed at his chest.

But she was decidedly a little too late; the man already had his pistol pointed squarely at Oliver's head.

"Drop your weapon."

"No," the man was seriously on edge, completely unpredictable, "You, get up off the floor and don't even think about going for your gun," he ordered Oliver.

"Okay," Oliver slowly stood up with his hands held in a non-threatening way, "Hank right? Do you want to explain to us what's going on here because it looks pretty bad from what I see?"

"Shut up. You're in no place to be asking me questions right now," Hank didn't break eye contact when he called out, "Abby, get over here and grab that other gun for daddy."

The girl hesitated, but got up on shaky legs. The fear of her 'daddy' must have been overwhelmingly more than all guns in the room. She went by Gail with her head hung low, crawled under the stairs, and got Oliver's gun. She held onto it with both hands and walked it over to Hank, placing it in his free hand.

"Thank you. Now stand in front of daddy."

"Don't!" Gail yelled to the girl.

Abby yielded to Hank's order and stood directly in front of him. When she realized why he'd asked her to do this, it was too late. Hank now had one gun pointed at Oliver and the other pressed against the side of Abby's head.

All Gail's training had taught her to never take her eyes off the assailant, but she couldn't help glancing down at the little girl every few seconds. Abby stood still, never even trying to peer over to the other girls who were dead silent. There were tears trickling down her face and she'd urinated all over her tattered pants. Gail was more terrified for that little girl than herself or Oliver.

"Drop your weapons," said Gail, "we can talk about this."

"No. Not gonna happen. You've already seen everything. There's no talking because I can't go to prison. Once the other inmates find out that my crimes involve children I'm a dead man. I know it, I'm not stupid. The thing is that I can only handle one hostage so I'm gonna shoot your partner soon and if you try to shoot me, I will not hesitate to shoot Abby," he never took his eyes off Oliver, "Then you and I blondie, are going to walk outta here together and drive out of the city."

"You're not going to get away with any of this. Every exit to the city will be blocked off, you won't make it far," said Gail.

"Well I have nothing to lose and a lot of faith so I might as well give it a try," a sly smile crossed Hank's face.

It was that deranged look that made Gail sure Hank wouldn't think twice about killing Oliver, Abby or the rest of them. Gail was scared. This was all going really fast, too fast. Her nerves were shot. She wasn't sure whether Hank would be able to get another shot off after she shoots him, was it worth taking the chance. Her palms were sweaty and it was difficult to hold her gun steady. She'd never been a believer in any god but she prayed as hard as she could to every religion that she could think of; she needed everything to work out.

"Peck if he shoots, you shoot," instructed Oliver, "Think of yourself and the girls behind you in the cellar."

Gail wasn't sure what she'd do if Hank shot Oliver, but nodded anyways. Her head was heavy, her hands shook, and her hair was matted with sweat.

She took one last look down at Abby. The girl had stopped crying and stared right back into Gail's eyes. Gail tried to give a little smile to let the girl know that everything would be okay. They eyes remained locked for a few moments.

Noise came from outside and Gail's fixed her stare back on Hank; it was the blaring of sirens coming down the street, their backup had arrived.

Hank decided that it was now or never and Gail panicked.

The ear-splitting cry of gunshots reverberated along the basement walls. One. Two… Three.

_Author's note: This is based on a few comments that I've gotten on tumblr... If I don't explicitly say 'sex abuse' then don't assume._


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